As costs of equipment and labor increase, it is necessary to provide quick and reliable refuse collection equipment so that each vehicle in service can collect the refuse from more containers per shift. The refuse collection equipment field is particularly in need of efficient residential refuse collection where a large number of relatively small containers must be collected and dumped in short periods of time. Furthermore, in many communities recycling is becoming popular, often a requirement, thus the numbers of containers are geometrically increasing. In addition, with the increasingly high cost of labor, these collection systems must become faster and more highly automated yet simpler, robust and hazard free. The industry has responded by providing innovative improvements that increase the reliability and speed while reducing the cost of collecting refuse. Many of these developments are significant and a measure of success has been achieved.
Of the many refuse collection systems available commercially and described in the literature, each suffers at least one and often, several shortcomings. If the refuse container handling assembly of the system can handle and reposition containers not directly in line with the lifting mechanism thereby making positioning of the collection vehicle with respect to the refuse container less critical. The assemblies tend to be fragile, difficult to maintain, unreliable, and require skills not available to, or attainable by, many refuse collection vehicle operators. If the container handling assemblies are robust and rugged, they tend to lack suitable articulation and do not have sufficient flexibility for efficient container pickup. These systems tend to be heavy and bulky which typically causes them to be slow, and very importantly, they overly stress the vehicle's suspension system and occupy valuable space on the vehicle which could otherwise be devoted to payload, i.e. refuse stowage.
Cost considerations in particular present many difficulties for the design of refuse handling systems. The quest for rapid operation, leads the designer to sophisticated automated assemblies, typically using light weight components to reduce power and dynamic loading demands. Although the fabrication of the system may turn out to be inexpensive, such designs are often plagued with operational failures and breakdowns which incur wasteful, unproductive time loss for the operator and the vehicle. The design of any such system must consider not only the challenges of the refuse collection operation, but the impact of system design and operation on the operator, the vehicle systems (frame, suspension, power plant, etc.), the collection bins, hoppers, compactors and even the refuse containers. Such design optimization techniques on a true vehicle/collection wide basis are frequently overlooked or bypassed with attendant losses in economy of operations.
In summary, a very substantial need remains to have refuse collection systems, and most particularly, refuse container engaging, clamping, lifting, dumping and releasing apparatus which further reduce overall refuse collection costs and increase the safety of the operator. Often the two objectives are in conflict.
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